• Sing in comfortable keys. Your job is not to show off your vocal range (or vocal gymnastics). If it is too high, too low, or in challenging intervals, your congregation will not sing.
• Sing to celebrate the power, glory, and salvation of God. There are good personal and relational songs of testimony or sentiments that may be appropriate in certain situations but, for the most part, worship is NOT about how warm and fuzzy you feel; it is about bowing down in humble awe of the power and glory of God. Sing His praises, sing about His attributes and sing about His mercy and grace.
• Serve your people. This might seem like a no-brainer but a legitimate worship service provides people with what they need; not what they want.
• Saturate them with the Word of God. Support your song choices with biblical references to God’s Word. He has assembled your congregation in your presence for only a few minutes each week and they don’t need junk food. They need spiritual meat and music can be a useful vehicle to deliver it to them. Make sure that your song choices are substantive and rich in scripture.
• Don’t sing songs with humanistic philosophies or heretical theology. I once read a comment that asked, “If your music doesn’t preach, why sing it?” The fact of the matter is that ALL music preaches. The problem is that so many Christians learn so much false doctrine from spiritually anemic, or downright stupid, popular contemporary music in church and on Christian radio. It takes wisdom and discernment to examine all the lyrics in light of Scripture. If necessary, you may have to make some corrective changes to the lyrics or, better yet, throw them out entirely. Just do it because you are no less accountable than is your pastor when it comes to preaching or teaching false doctrine.
• Don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s not about you (or your “worship team”). Someone has suggested that, if worship teams were required to sing from behind a curtain, there would be no more worship teams. Entertainment is not an element of worship and the musical portion of your ministry is not your turn to perform. And no one wants to hear your overly dramatic, rehearsed praises and prayers. Do not use your music ministry as your outlet for creativity at the expense of the centrality of the Gospel. I once had a pastor who had a small plaque on his pulpit, engrave with these words, “Sirs, we would see Jesus.” It was fixed there to remind him (and anyone else he allowed to share his pulpit) that his responsibility was always and only to point men to Jesus.
Excellent!
ReplyDeleteAs a "Minister of Music" for 59 years, I could not agree with you more. It has always been my goal to make the message both first and correct. I avoid hymns (even some of the popular oldies) that are doctrinally incorrect. Focusing on psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that point to God through Christ is paramount.
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